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01. New Design |
Verdict: 7
This is the fifth album by this Swedish progressive power metal band and "Voice of Reason" does not stray far from it's predecessors. Ever since the first self titled album "Cloudscape" that was released over ten years ago they have continued to chisel out complex arrangements and enchanting melody lines. Cloudscape compose in a manner that leaves the result easy to digest for the listener rather than incredibly demanding. This type of music is somewhat a balance on a slack line since, this since it is so easy to become overly generic or even cheesy. Bur this never becomes a problem for Cloudscape, they own this genre and they shine in their own right throughout the entire "Voice Of Reason".
The two opening tracks "New Design" and "Futuristic Psycho" holds a really high quality mixing ambient elements with fast paced guitar riffs showing off the skilled band members without going Yngwie all over the place.
The third and fourth tracks are not as good, "Don't Close Your Eyes" fail to have a memorable chorus and "All for Metal" is just a filler that could have been replaced with something better. A whole lot better, Cloudscape is not and should not try to be another Hammerfall.
The fifth track "Voice of Reason" is an eleven minute mastodon track, and what a song it is. This is exactly the type of songs that leaves everything else in the dust, no less than outstanding.
The last track is a nine minute acoustic creation that evolve into a really heavy tune "In Silence We Scream" that might be the best track of the entire album.
Musically Cloudscape has plenty of melodic elements from the Genesis, IQ and Vangelis as well as Power Metal elements from Helloween, Evergrey and Pretty Maids. Cloudscape themself describes their music to be Melodic metal with progressive touches and they aim to appeal to the listeners of Evergrey, Symphony X, Dream Theater, Yngwie J. Malmsteen and Pagan’s Mind. Cloudscapes ambition is to compose songs that are in between the progressive metal genre and also the more straight forward melodic metal genre in order to reach out to a wider audience such as genuine metal fans and also fans into the more progressive side of metal. Cloudscape puts the melodies in the first room and they don’t necessary compose progressive songs for the sake of making them progressive.
And Cloudcape are doing a great job with "Voice of Reason", keep up the good work lads.